Behind the curtain: Our life in Morwell
Turns out a lot of you are curious about the experience of making this podcast, why we are so emotionally invested, and our observations of the community we've been embedded in.
In this episode, Rachael Brown and Stephen Stockwell give listeners a peek into their lives in Morwell, and a behind the scenes of making the pod.
If you've got questions about the case that you'd like Rachael and Stocky to answer in future episodes, send them through to mushroomcasedaily@abc.net.au
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It's the case that's captured the attention of the world.
Three people died and a fourth survived an induced coma after eating beef wellington at a family lunch, hosted by Erin Patterson.
Police allege the beef wellington contained poisonous mushrooms, but Erin Patterson says she's innocent.
Now, the accused triple murderer is fighting the charges in a regional Victorian courthouse. Investigative reporter Rachael Brown and producer Stephen Stockwell are on the ground, bringing you all the key moments from the trial as they unravel in court.
From court recaps to behind-the-scenes murder trial explainers, the Mushroom Case Daily podcast is your eyes and ears inside the courtroom.
Keep up to date with new episodes of Mushroom Case Daily, now releasing every day on the ABC listen app.
To catch up on all the evidence from the case, go back and listen to all our Friday Wrap episodes:
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ABC News
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Spit hoods return to the NT as chief minister sprays critics as 'offender apologists'
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ABC News
an hour ago
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Man sentenced for lighting own unit on fire out of frustration at noisy neighbours
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SBS Australia
2 hours ago
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Don't think you're the type to join a cult? Gloria didn't think she was either
Gloria had been shopping at Melbourne Central on an ordinary morning in 2019 when a man approached her, asking her to do a survey. It seemed like an innocent interaction, but one she would later learn was part of a wider plan that involved manipulative and controlling tactics. "This guy approaches me on the street and he said he was doing a survey for university. He said he was from RMIT and could I help him," the 25-year-old tells SBS News. The man showed Gloria images of three different emojis — a dancing woman, prayer hands and an aeroplane — and asked her to choose one. She chose the prayer hands. Gloria was presented with three emojis by a friendly person who said they were a university student carrying out a survey. Source: SBS News It opened a conversation about Gloria's faith and how she had been raised in a Christian family. When she told him she was not overly religious, he asked about her hobbies, and they started talking about her passion for photography. "He was like: 'Oh, I have a friend, she is a movie director, and she knows everything about photography and videography', and then she also happens to teach the Bible, so that's how he hooked me in," she says. Plans were made for Gloria to attend a Bible study where she could meet this friend. She says she was given a warm welcome and that the group's friendly approach made her more open to learning about its interpretation of the Bible, so she started attending regularly. It went from a two-times-a-week Bible study session, then it became three times a week. Before long, Gloria found herself enmeshed in Shincheonji Church of Jesus (SCJ), a South Korean religious group many consider to be a cult. The church was founded in 1984 by Lee Man-hee and is believed to have more than 200,000 members in South Korea, and more than 30,000 members overseas. Australian universities have issued warnings to their students about Shincheonji including Adelaide University and RMIT in Melbourne. RMIT posted on its website about the "Korean religious sect posing as Bible study", describing it as a scam and cautioning students about its recruitment tactics. "Over time there will be an increased amount of time expected for Church activities, including recruiting more people to the Church," the warning reads. "There will be pressure to not maintain contact with family and friends outside of the Church and keep Church membership a secret. There will be less and less time not scheduled with the Church to fit in study and see family and friends." Such methods are expected to be under the microscope as part of an upcoming inquiry into cults and organised fringe groups in Victoria. The inquiry has been accepting submissions since April, and SBS News understands a number of those are regarding Shincheonji. Four and a half years passed before Gloria started to question the group's tactics, which she now describes as controlling and manipulative. Secrecy and promises Gloria did not think she was the type of person who would join a cult. For the first nine months of her involvement with Shincheonji, she, like other new recruits, did not know the name of the group she was being groomed into. It was revealed to her at a ceremony held around the nine-month mark, in which she and other new members were encouraged to signify their commitment. On its Korean website, the organisation explains that Shincheonji means "new heaven and new Earth". Australian branches of the group connect back to South Korea's Shincheonji Church of Jesus (SCJ), and its Melbourne chapter has been registered as a charity since 2022. Lee is touted by his followers as the 'promised pastor' who will take 144,000 people with him to heaven on the 'day of judgement', which he professes will happen within his lifetime. Lee Man-hee is the chair of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, based in South Korea. Source: AAP Gloria says while the group's more dubious motives, including withholding its name, may seem obvious in hindsight, they were harder for her to spot at first. "They share a lot of Christian-related doctrines in the very beginning, but over time they change the teaching slowly, without people even realising," she says. "Once they start getting you on-side, they'll start teaching you a bit more of what they really want to teach you, they take your reaction and if you're strongly against it, they will bring in more traditional Christian topics to gain your trust again before bringing those topics in again." Exclusive to Shincheonji is the belief that Lee is a messenger sent by Jesus and that he has a unique ability to correctly interpret the Book of Revelation. "They are manipulating people, but they just say that is how to bring the person into God," she says. Gloria says when things didn't quite add up, further detail was always promised, but rarely delivered. "I did have a lot of questions, but the teacher would always say: 'Oh, we'll talk about that topic in the next topic', and obviously I'd forget about it by then," she says. Bearing 'fruit' Gloria did not realise at the time, but many of her interactions with people at her Bible study group were controlled and orchestrated in what she now believes was a form of psychological manipulation. More than half of those attending the classes were confirmed members of Shincheonji, but they did not disclose their affiliation at the time. Shincheonji members are referred to as 'leaves' and tasked with recruiting new members — or 'fruits'. The leaves are instructed to learn as much about their potential recruit as possible, including their strengths and weaknesses — information they then use to help bring them into the fold. In a video posted to YouTube in 2022 by the group, a presenter explains that "the leaf is an evangelist who spreads the word of life". Gloria may not have been familiar with the recruitment process when she was targeted as a 'fruit', but she soon learnt how existing members would minimise interactions between new recruits to control narratives. "Each fruit has one to two leaves, sometimes three, but it's pretty rare," she explains. "Imagine that there is a row of seeds, so the fruits will be sitting in the middle while the leaf will be sitting on their right and the left side of the fruit, so that the fruit that's in the middle won't be talking to another fruit on the other side of the seed. "The leaf will always follow the fruit wherever they go inside that classroom to make sure that the fruit doesn't talk to another fruit." Sometimes it could be even creepier, and they follow them to the toilet. The group uses Bible verses to back this figurative theory of growing trees when teaching their members. Within the group, members are referred to as "trees of life" who are meant to spread Shincheonji beliefs or knowledge referred to as the "word of life". Attaining this knowledge is framed as imperative for salvation and used by Shincheonji to separate its followers from the general population, who are believed to have a lack of knowledge. The group emphasises that only those who receive this 'revealed word' will be saved and attain heaven — one of the reasons it is sometimes referred to as a doomsday cult. So followers like Gloria initially feel they are sharing God's true teaching and doing good by bringing more people to the sect. From 'education' to 'indoctrination' Like other members of Shincheonji, Gloria was encouraged not to spend time with her friends outside of the group, as anyone with differing beliefs was framed as being "dead in spirit". "They would say they belong to the dead, you're not supposed to hang out with them so much, because they believe the dead people cannot be together with people who are alive," she says. Members are kept busy by the group, attending Bible study and evangelising others, which they are told will help them serve God and ultimately attain heaven. At the peak of her involvement, Gloria says she was committing 12 hours a day, almost every day, to the group. She would wake up at 5am or 6am each day to get to the first session. "You cannot be late to that 7am meeting. If you are late, you get scolded, you get public humiliation, you get shouted at in front of all the other members," she says. Gloria says members would tolerate this behaviour, believing the teachings that had been drilled into them. At the time, she felt she was showing her commitment to her faith, by taking part in what she calls "educations". Today, she calls it "indoctrination". Renee Spencer, a therapist who specialises in providing counselling to those who have experienced coercive control, describes this as "dictating daily tasks". "If you've got someone who is busy all day, then they don't have time to stop and question things, especially when you couple that with other behaviours such as controlling information," she says. Turning her back on the cult After two years, Gloria started to feel unhappy in the group. When she tried to express her feelings, she says she was encouraged to suppress them and continue on with the group. "I was feeling pressured, they encourage inside the group that you can't share any negative feelings, any negative comments or anything like that. They say that if you show it, then you're not overcoming yourself," she says. She started noticing things going on behind the scenes that made her uneasy, and started thinking more critically about how Shincheonji operates. "I noticed how members were not being treated well," Gloria says. "I started to see how, when members who had been there for three or four years, who started to get sick from working so much for SCJ, and then they had to take time off, they weren't cared for." Those people were made to feel like they were just thrown out like trash, like they no longer served a purpose. She says that's when her faith in the group's teachings began to falter. "[I] started to think that if it's the kingdom of God, if it was the place where God is, why are our people not being treated well?" How do you define a cult? Gloria finally left Shincheonji in 2024 after four and a half years. Looking back, she still finds it surprising that she got caught up with the group, but says the lack of knowledge about cults and how to identify them likely contributed to that. "In the world, we don't have that much of an education on [what] does a cult look like," she says. "Because people see being in cults based on what they see in the movies, like an upside-down cross ... but the real cult itself looks like a normal church." In Australia, there is no clear-cut legal definition that separates a cult from other similar religious entities, including 'sects' or 'new religious movements'. However, the Victorian inquiry has said it will focus on "groups that use manipulative or controlling tactics to dominate members". A public hearing last month heard from former members of the Geelong Revival Centre, a Pentecostal doomsday church. Spencer, whose drive to educate people about cults came after her daughter became involved in what is believed to be a cult, has created an evaluation tool to help people to identify cult-like characteristics within groups. Her system assesses groups based on 12 key criteria, from authoritative leadership to "us versus them" mentality, and provides a score to measure whether the group's influence is healthy or harmful and to what extent. The model draws on behaviours identified in the federal government's report on coercive control in domestic and family violence as a basis for the criteria. While Spencer's focus is on education and support, she says the tool could be used by authorities to identify groups using harmful and coercive practices, such as cults and religious sects. The Victorian inquiry will also consider whether the techniques used by these groups amount to criminal coercion. Ella George, the chair of the Victorian Legislative Assembly Legal and Social Issues Committee, which is overseeing the inquiry, says there is legitimate concern about whether the techniques groups such as Shincheonji are using would "amount to coercion that should be criminalised". NSW and Queensland have recently criminalised coercive control through specific legislation; however, this is limited to domestic relationships. Former federal attorney-general Mark Dreyfus, in his response to a petition mentioning Shincheonji and calling for the government to legislate against coercive control by any organisation, has said this is "a matter for individual state and territory governments". National principles on coercive control, which were created in collaboration with the federal government to establish "a shared national understanding of coercive control", are also specific to family and domestic violence contexts. Inquiry's public hearings to begin Gloria expects Shincheonji to come under the spotlight as part of the upcoming inquiry. She set up a support group for ex-members of Shincheonji in Australia last year, which has brought her in contact with about 70 former members in Melbourne and around a dozen each in Canberra, Sydney and Perth. Gloria says the group's influence extends far beyond Victoria. Gloria hopes the inquiry will force groups such as Shincheonji to be more transparent about their identity and motives from the outset. "That is coercive if you do not tell people what sort of organisation you are from in the beginning when recruiting someone," she says. Members surveying people on the street is just one of the methods Gloria says the group employs to recruit new members. She says the group has many "front groups", the most prominent being one that operates as a charity doing community service work, and that members of Shincheonji are constantly holding social events with different interest groups, using different aliases. SBS News is aware of singing groups, art exhibitions and K-pop-inspired events that have all been used as social gatherings to provide opportunities for group members to ingratiate themselves with new and potential recruits. Gloria says members may use such events to 'love-bomb' recruits — meaning to shower them with praise and form close connections with them. Love-bombing is one of the more commonly known tactics used by cults to recruit members, which the inquiry has suggested it will investigate via its submissions. Gloria says while she did not realise it at the time, the Shincheonji 'leaves' used this technique on her when she was introduced to the group by overwhelming her with affection, praise and attention to create emotional bonds. SBS News contacted Shincheonji's Melbourne chapter for comment but did not receive a response. Public hearings as part of the Victorian inquiry began last week, with a final report due no later than 30 September 2026.
